Sports of The Times; For Mets, A Shake-Up Is in Order

By MURRAY CHASS

Published: August 6, 1991

BASEBALL'S ultimate series come October could be the World Series of Underachievers, but the Mets are treating their role too seriously to be in position to play the Toronto Blue Jays. In fact, if the Blue Jays reach the World Series, the Mets, by default, would be baseball's outright underachieving champions.

The Mets, beginning tonight, could shed that stigma, but nothing in the way they have played since the All-Star Game break indicates that they are prepared to use their three-game series with first-place Pittsburgh or subsequent games with the Pirates or anyone else to charge to the top of the National League East. So if the Mets can't join Toronto as a division champion, let them copy the Blue Jays.

Frustrated by their annual failure to reach the World Series -- often the playoffs at all -- despite their status as a highly talented team, the Blue Jays made a dramatic trade last winter, sending Fred McGriff and Tony Fernandez, two of their established stars, to San Diego for Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar.

"What it did," Pat Gillick, the Blue Jays' general manager, said, "was basically change the style of play of the club. We were basically a wait-and-hit-a-three-run-homer club. This season we have been more of a pitching-defense type of club."

Whatever stylistic change the Blue Jays have undergone, they are headed in the right direction. The Mets cannot make that same statement. Here is a team that in the previous seven seasons won more games than anyone, its 666 victories producing an average -- 95 per season -- that 14 of the other 25 major league teams didn't reach in any of the seven seasons. Yet, the Mets have won only two division championships in that span and are playing in a downward spiral this year, meaning they have squandered a lot of talent.

It's time to shake up that bag of talent, keeping in mind the Mets have to trade more intelligently than they acted when they decided to replace Darryl Strawberry's power with Vince Coleman's speed. Coleman is one of five players the Mets should trade; the others are Gregg Jefferies, Dave Magadan, Kevin Elster and Sid Fernandez.

Given the way the front office feels about Jefferies, sending him away most likely would be traumatic. The brain trust feels that no better player has reached the majors in the last 25 years, and his boosters believe he will be a superstar. In his three seasons with the Mets, though, he has become a super distraction.

Though Jefferies has achieved that status not completely on his own, the point is his presence has become a negative factor in the Mets' clubhouse, and it's a distraction the Mets don't need. Virtually from the day Jefferies joined the Mets, he and his teammates have not got along. His teammates have viewed him as a pampered, pouting brat and they seem to wait for him to fail. They certainly haven't given him a chance to succeed. Jefferies has yet to fulfill his potential, but the Mets would have no trouble getting good value in return. "Teams would stand in line for him," the general manager of another club said. "He'll live up to his potential with the second team he goes to."

Jefferies certainly would be the most marketable of the players the Mets should trade. Magadan, Fernandez and Elster have lost trade value, and Coleman's ill-conceived contract would make it difficult to trade him. But the Mets should make every effort to move them elsewhere.

Coleman, despite his base-stealing, is not a good leadoff hitter. His on-base percentage of .360, in fact, is lower than Rick Cerone's .371. Furthermore, he is not a good outfielder and he has introduced another negative attitude into the Mets' mix. Magadan, who has to be a .300 hitter just to make a partial contribution, and Jefferies also are part of the team's destructive defense. Elster doesn't even play every day.

Fernandez, even when healthy, hasn't pitched up to expectations, but the Mets may have to keep him if they don't re-sign Frank Viola as a free agent. The Mets have to make a decision on Viola, who rejected their last offer, $13 million for three years, and they have to decide if they will pursue other expensive free agents. Bobby Bonilla, for example, would be the type of run producer they lost when Strawberry departed.

Various reports have said that both Bonilla and Viola have already reached understandings with the Yankees for when they become free agents, but Gene Michael, among others, denied that such developments have occurred. "I wouldn't even risk talking about something like that," the Yankees' general manager said.

The Mets, on the other hand, should start talking to other teams now. Maybe they would talk a better game than they play.